


Soft Focus

by colazitron



Series: Soft Focus [1]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-21
Updated: 2011-12-21
Packaged: 2017-11-27 04:37:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/658084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colazitron/pseuds/colazitron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zayn is Harry's soft focus lens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Soft Focus

**Soft Focus**

It’s early morning. The horizon is greying with the coming sunlight but overhead it’s still dark enough to see some stars. The night was clear and cold and their breath fogs before them. Harry’s lips are chapped and dry and he’s pretty sure if he smiles too hard now, they’re gonna crack open and bleed. _It’s a good thing then,_ he thinks darkly, _that he’s out here on the roof with Zayn,_ because Zayn never makes him smile too hard. It’s not that he doesn’t make him smile, he does; just hard enough.

Zayn is sweet. When he holds his hand, he does it gently. Zayn’s hands are always warm and soft and never sweaty. He murmurs little comments to him that make Harry feel warm and smile at him softly. His kisses always start out as pecks and when he deepens them it’s like sinking into a tub full of hot water and bubbles. It’s comfortable and loving and never too much or too little. Zayn smiles at him like Harry’s everything he wants.

Harry loves Zayn, he does. He’s kind and funny and being with him is a bit like he imagines happily ever after to be. Like all the world is in soft focus. Harry likes soft focus. He likes tenderness and comfort and security. He’s domestic, he can’t help it. He likes the smell of home-cooked meals and sharing a blanket on the sofa. He wants good night kisses and knowing for sure that he won’t wake up alone.

Just sometimes... sometimes he wants his heart to race. He wants to look at Zayn and trip over his feet and have to catch his breath because he’s just that beautiful and he feels like he can’t take it. He wants to laugh so hard that tears are streaming down his face. He wants to be surprised and for Zayn to laugh at him because he’s being ridiculous but love him anyway.

Life is not happily ever after, it can’t be. Life is messy. Life is clammy palms, cold and still sweaty. Life is obnoxious comments and furrowed brows. Life is bad plumbing where your room mate flushing the toilet means sudden shocks of ice cold water when you’re in the shower. And life is ridiculous highs. Running until your lungs and legs literally give out and you collapse on the ground in a happy heap, adrenaline and endorphines running through your veins. It’s eating chili ice cream, just because it’s there. It’s never stopping to be curious about everything.

Harry is so, so scared of being too scared to really live his life.

Zayn laces their fingers together and smiles at him and Harry smiles back and his lip doesn’t break. Liam comes to find them and tell them they’re leaving. Before they step out onto the sidewalk to get to their cabs, Zayn presses a kiss to his temple and Harry knows that gesture says, _“I love you”_ and _“I already miss you”_ and _“You make me so happy”_. It almost makes him cry. Niall is already in the cab and Liam gets in after Zayn and the look he shoots Harry is filled with equal measures of pity and reproach.

“Harry!” Louis yells, holding open the door of the second cab and ripping through every fibre of Harry’s thoughts and life like a whirlwind. “Come on, Curly, I’m freezing my fabulous arse off!”

Harry laughs and hurries over to him and giggles as Louis gives his arse a shove and Harry almost faceplants into the backseat of the car. Louis gives the driver their address quickly before launching into an anecdote of the party that Harry missed out on witnessing, because he’d taken a quiet moment with Zayn. By the time they arrive at their apartment, Harry can’t stop giggling. His lower lip is stained a deep red from when he distractedly wiped the blood off when it burst open half-way through Louis’ first tale.

Louis locks up behind them and kicks off his shoes, dragging Harry’s coat off his shoulders with a flourish while Harry slips off his own shoes. Then Louis manoeuvres him into his bedroom like he’s a child, both still laughing. Harry yanks off his shirt and trousers and crawls into his bed. Louis slides in next to him naturally and smiles at him a little cheekily. The blinds aren’t entirely closed and the first rays of sunlight hit Louis’ exhausted but smiling face like a spotlight. Harry’s heart somersaults over Louis’ cheek bones and his blue, blue eyes tear at it like a lion so he closes his eyes against it and yawns for good measure. He can hear Louis’ quiet, kind laugh.

“Get some beauty sleep, Snow White,” he whispers and Harry’s lip splits a second time.

“Your boyfriend would never forgive me if I gave you back ruined.”

Harry’s eyes fly back open and his smile softens and he tries to tell Louis not to worry with a look and hopes, in the darkest corner of his heart, he can hear all the things he’s not brave enough to say instead.

 _“I’m already ruined,”_ it thumps in his heart.

 _“I love him but I love you more,”_ it sings in his veins.

 _“Just say the word,”_ it begs in his fingertips.

Louis closes his eyes and Harry follows.

**The End**


End file.
